Thesis

AdS gravity - a root to strongly correlated systems

• Call:

  IDPASC Portugal - PHD Programme 2014

• Academic Year:

  2014 /2015

• Domains:

  Theoretical Particle Physics | General Relativity

• Supervisor:

  Miguel Costa

• Co-Supervisor:

  João Penedones

• Institution:

  Universidade do Porto

• Host Institution:

  Centro de Física do Porto

• Abstract:

  The proposed research program aims at exploring gravitational physics in asymptotically AdS spaces and its relation to strongly coupled field theories. AdS gravitational physics has been extensively explored in the past years, starting from the most studied example of the AdS/CFT duality that relates N=4 SYM to type IIB strings in a ten dimensional space-time AdS_5 x S^5. This duality opened a new road for explorations that aim at constructing the QCD string, providing an entirely new language to describe the strong interaction. More recently, a more phenomenological approach considers simply gravitational physics in AdS with additional matter fields, instead of a full string theory, to describe the thermodynamics of putative strongly coupled field theories. Such framework can describe very non trivial IR physics that has many resemblances with condensed matter systems such as superconductors, fermi liquids and new exotic phases of matter. From the AdS perspective one considers the thermodynamics of black holes, particularly its phase diagram and critical exponents. More recently, new attention is being paid to quenches and the corresponding thermalization process. For instance, recently islands of stability have been found in AdS gravity subject to time dependent collapsing matter. These deformations almost lead to the formation of black holes, but then the system fails to collapse and nearly returns to its initial form. Such behaviour has also been observed in Conformal Field Theories subject to quantum quenches (a phenomena known as revivals). The proposed work will aim at constructing new AdS black hole solutions, that result from introducing AdS boundary conditions that are dual to deforming the dual field theory with relevant operators, therefore drastically changing the IR physics. We will also explore time-dependent deformations, which describe quenches, and then study the gravitational evolution of the system. The proposed work will be fully integrated within the international scientific community in the research area of the gauge/gravity duality, particularly through the participation in the ESF research network HoloGrav; the Marie Curie IRSES network UNIFY, the Marie Curie ITN network GATIS and the COST network “The String Theory Universe”.